Sibylline Oracles

There was once among men a shining light of the sun.

The Sibylline Oracles are a collection of oracular utterances written in Greek hexameters ascribed to the Sibyls, prophetesses who uttered divine revelations in a frenzied state. Fourteen books and eight fragments of Sibylline Oracles survive, in an edition of the 6th or 7th century AD. They are not to be confused with the original Sibylline Books of the ancient Etruscans and Romans which were burned by order of Roman general Flavius Stilicho in the 4th century AD.

Quotes

Greek text cited from J. Geffcken, Die Oracula Sibyllina (Leipzig, 1902).

Book 5

• κακοὶ [. . .]
  ἀντὶ θεοῦ δὲ λίθους καὶ κνώδαλα θρησκεύοντες
  πολλὰ μάλ᾿ ἄλλυδις ἄλλα φοβούμενοι, οἷς λόγος οὐδείς,
  οὐ νόος, οὐκ ἀκοή.
  • The wicked [. . .] worship stones and brute beasts instead of God,
    revering very many things, one here another there, which have no reason,
    or mind or hearing.
  • V.75–79 (tr. H. C. O. Lanchester, 1913)

• ἐξ ἰδίων δὲ κόπων καὶ ἀτασθαλιῶν ἐπινοιῶν
  ἄνθρωποι δέξαντο θεοὺς ξυλίνους λιθίνους τε
  χαλκέους τε χρυσέους τε καὶ ἀργυρέους, ματαίους δὲ
  ἀψύχους κωφούς τε καὶ ἐν πυρὶ χωνευθέντας
  ποιήσαντο μάτην τούτοισι πεποιθότες.
  • From their own labors and wicked notions
    men have accepted gods of wood and stone.
    They have made them of bronze and gold and silver, vain
    lifeless, dumb, and smelted in fire, vainly putting their trust in such as these.
  • V.81–85 (tr. H. C. O. Lanchester, 1913)

• ἦν ποτ᾿ ἐν ἀνθρώποις λαμπρὸν σέλας ἠελίοιο
  σπειρομένης ἀκτῖνος ὁμοσπόνδοιο προφητῶν·
  γλῶσσα μελισταγέουσα καλὸν πόμα πᾶσι βροτοῖσιν
  φαῖνέ τε καὶ προὔβαλλε καὶ ἥμερα πᾶσιν ἔτελλεν.
  • There was once among men a shining light of the sun
    when the harmonious ray of the prophets was being spread abroad,
    a tongue dripping a beautiful drink for all mortals with honeyed sweetness;
    it made manifest, offered and effected gentle things for all.
  • V.238–241 (tr. H. C. O. Lanchester, 1913)

• καὶ τότε θυμωθεὶς θεὸς ἄφθιτος αἰθέρι ναίων
  οὐρανόθεν πρηστῆρα βαλεῖ κατὰ κρατὸς ἀνάγνου.
  • The imperishable God who dwells in the sky in anger
    will case a lightning bolt from heaven against the power of the impious.
  • V.298 (tr. H. C. O. Lanchester, 1913)

Book 14

• ἄνθρωποι, τί μάτην ὡς ἀθάνατοί περ ἐόντες
  καὶ βραχὺ κοιρανέοντες ἄγαν ὑψηλὰ φρονεῖτε;
  • O men, why do ye vainly think on things
    Too lofty, as if ye immortal were?
  • XIV.1–2 (tr. M. S. Terry, 1890)